The Daily Worker Newspaper, October 29, 1932, Page 4

DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK. | THE FIRE AND SWORD ACT Page Four ATURDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1932 ‘Meaning of the New Attack —By Burck orker Dail Fatliched by the Comprodaity Publishing Co. 13th St., New Yerk City W. ¥. Telepho: Address and mal ehecks to the Daily Worker Party USA Ine, daily axexept Sunday, st 2 B Leonquin 4-7806, Cadle “DAIWORE~ = E. 19m St, Mew York, MY. | SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Gy mall everywhere: One yes: : six months, $3; twe menthe, 91; ecepting Borough of Manhatian and Bronx. New York City. Versiqn: ome year, 68: six months, $4.50. Canads, $8 per year; 75 conte er menth. The International Hunger March O EFFORT by the capitalist press to minimize the Hunger 1 March of the British unemployed workers led by the Com- munist Party, and to play down the gigantic supporting dem- onstrations of employed and unemployed workers in London can disguise the fact that, next to the mutiny in the navy, it is the most damaging blow dealt by British workers to the ce the General Strike of 1926. ss resistance to the attacks by police, admitted 5,000, the enthusiastic welcomes received by the the to London, the material assistance in the form of food and shelter given them by workers’ organi- zations, the acknowledged leadership of the whole struggle Party and the Unemployed Workers’ Committees, on, a member of the Communist Party, show that fh working class are breaking away from the influence ders and the more skillfully treacherous leadership t Labor Party. ruling class The m to number marchers on way of the Indepen: leaders who betrayed the General Strike, of the present brutal suppression of Labor Party was in power, and who were s Test”—the abolition of which is a central le—are finding it harder to keep the masses THE L who or demand the ci The workers are fighting against wholesale pauperization. 3,000,000 jobless workers in Great Britain. The Labor he National Government was formed, headed by Mac- worked out a complete scheme of wage cuts, reduction of insurance and all social services, and machinery for throt- e struggles against rationalization and wage cuts. British ans Test” was an important part of this scheme. The split i Party did not arise on the question of the principle of these n All Labor Party leaders—Henderson and Lansbury included— v creed that the capitalist offensive must be carried farther at the f the workers. They all the were and are for the preservation of capi- time. uw the questidn of the methods to be used in and social standards of the working class still lower— fits of ne capitalists. Henderson, Lansbury, Clynes, er to “His Majesty's loyal opposition” in order to nfluence among the awakening working class, in order to ys of betraying the workers, ies of the British Labor Party and Independent. Labor { Party leaders in the United States—Thomas, Hill- Oneal, Hoan, ete.—try to keep the demands of the unemployed the legal limitations of capitalist “democracy” and its legislative machinery. If keeps its members out of the ngles struggles where it can, It splits the wherever possible, as in the needle trades unions in strike of the Paterson silk workers. It lists 1 its program, but its sole proposal for securing Party candidates. eenwood, of the Labor Party, was Minister of Health in the ld Cabinet, he drew up the reguluations for the present “Means To secure unemployment insurance under this measure a worker himself a pauper. If he has relatives who are working, he There is now a proposal before the Cabinet for disfran- who receive unemplpoyment insurance. feans Test” went into effect last November. The MacDonald hoped that approximately 1,000,000 workers would be cut off the insurance rolls and that the saving to the capitalists and the gov- ernment would amount to $175,000,000 per year. That the most drastic Steps were taken to enforce the “Means Test” is shown by the fact’ that up to last February about 400,000 workers had been deprived of unemploy- ment insurance. The number now, of course, is far larger. « . . + and went Whil MacDor ed The government HE mass struggle in Great Britain is taking place at a time when the crisis of British capitalism and of world capitalism has brought pro- duction and trade to new low levels—below the 1914 level. It takes place at a time when the economic battles and the national liberation struggles in Ireland and India are striking at the very foundations of British im- peralism. But most important of all is the growing strength of the Communist Party at the expense of the “Socialist” bulwark of imperialism—the Labor Party and the Independent Labor Party—and the increasing organization of the masses in support of the Communist Party united front program of struggle. The inability of the capitalist world to solve the question’ of mass unemployment any other way than by heaping more burdens of the crisis on the rking class, thereby intensifying and broadening the class struggle, become: parent each day, The revolutionary way out of the crisis—the Communist road of struggle—is seen to be the only salvation for the masses. . In Great Britain, the ruling class is making the most desperate efforts to stop the process of the crisis and of the disintegration of the empire by tariff preferences to the dominions and the breaking off of trade rela- tions with the Soviet Union at their demand (increasing unemployment and raising the cost of living for the masses by these steps) and prepara- tions for imperialist war. In the United States, more the Wall Street government tries to crawl out of the crisis by a series of sweeping and drastic wage cuts, mass un- employment, reduction of charity relief and inflationary methods increas- ing the prices of commodities of mass consumption, and preparations for imperialist war. * . * ‘ THE struggle of the unemployed is international. In America, the rich- est country in the world, there are 15,000,000 to 16,000,000 unemployed, tor whom the federal government makes no provision. The demand for cash relief and unemployment insurance at the expense of the govern- Ment and employers is a demand for decent food, clothing and shelter. It is‘a demand for the right to live of the millions of jobless and their dependents. The struggle for these demands, organized and led by the Communist Party and the Unemployed Councils, is a basic struggle calling for the Support of every worker. The mass struggles which occur day by day over specific local demands in ever-increasing number, when conducted in accord with the united front program of the Communist Party, will lay a broad and firm foundation for the Hunger March to Washington for the presentation of the demands at the opening of Congress—for winning these demands. Support the program of the Communist Party! Vote Communist! Call of International Red Aid The following call has been issued | tice the most cruel violence and ill- by the Executive Committee of the | irestinent. International Red Aid, of which the| “workmen and workwomen, toilers International Labor Defense is the | of the town and village! Such a des- American section: tiny threatens all of you, your fami- “Join the army of the International | lies and friends, Red Aid. ‘i “Close our movement of interna-| "The alm of the LR.A. ts your own tional revolutionary solidarity zs “Strengthen the defense and as- ‘The work of LR.A. is an insepar- sistance for the proletarian prisoners | able part of your general struggle for | bread and work, against the new im- of capitalism. “On November 10, world congress | Perialist war, against the attack on of I. R. A. is being convened, This | Ur only revolutionary fatherland — congress will review the ten years |the Soviet Union. work of our organization. It will call| “Be prepared to join in masses the ranks of the LR.A. “The badge of L.R.A.—the red ban- ner waving behind the prison bars must find the place it deserves in every worker's family and every upon ali of you to join the LR.A., to extend and strengthen its ranks. | “The toiling masses of all coun- tries must hear the voices of the IRA, Its call must find an unanimous answer. | farmers’ family. “Look all around: Fascist, police! “Long live the LR.A, and court terror is raging with un-/ “Long live the international soli- heard of cruelty in all capitalist coun- | darity of the toilers in the struggle tries. Listen: A call for help is heard | against white terror, fascism and the from all capitalist prisons. A call| war danger. for resistance to the jailers, who prac- ‘The Executive Committee of the IRA. Build the Unity Between the Struggling Workers, Farmers i Solidarity Expressed in Deeds in Recent Struggles; C. P. Backs National Relief Conference By H. PURO. r 1901, Lenin, writing in “Iskra” (The Spatk”—first Bolshevik paper), concerning the relations of city workers and the awakening peasantry, said: “The peasants who are coming to the cities are already watch- ing with keen interest the sSrug- gle of the workers, which they do not understand; but they are spreading the message of these struggles everywhere in the rural districts. We can and we must bring about conditions to change this interest, if not into full un- derstanding, at least into the knowledge that the workers are struggling for the interests of all toilers, and that the interest of the peasants will change into ever-growing sympathy towards the workers ’struggles.” The sharp struggles of the work- ers in recent years in the United States have aroused more and more interest among the tillers of the land. The following incidents serve to illustrate this interest: During the Pennsylvania-Ohio miners’ strike the northwestern farmers, who are perhaps more ad- vanced, sent carloads of foodstuff to the striking miners. The Ken- tucky miners’ strike last winter aroused very great interest throughout the southern farm fields among the poor farm population. So keen was their interest and sympathy towards the miners’ struggles, and so well did they re- alize the possibilities of improving their own position through these Struggles, that they sought to join the miners’ union, FARMERS ON HUNGER MARCHES During the national and. state unemployed marches, farmers— some of them from far distances— came along the route to greet the marching workers, bringing food- stuffs for them. So that the ex- ploited farmers in the United States are not only watching the struggles of the workers with keen interest, but beginning to under- stand them. During the recent struggles of the farmers, these solidarity feel- ings have been expressed not only in words but in deeds. In Iowa, unemployed workers went on the Picket lines with the farmers, help- ing them maintain militant mass picketing. In return, the striking farmers expressed their solidarity by distributing milk for the unem- ployed and their families, er Sea ATER on, 300 unemployed and employed workers in a mass meeting in Sioux City condemned the use of police against the strik- ing farmers by adopting the fol- lowing resolution: “We, three hundred unem- ployed and employed workers of Sioux City, in meeting assembled, denounce most vigorously the ac- tion of Mayor Hays and Safety Commissioner McBride in order- ing and employing police of this city to brutally attack the farm- ers who are engaged in a strug- gle against impoverishment and bankruptcy. “We especially denounce as slanderous the statement of Ma- yor Hays that this deliberate as- sault upon the unarmed farmers is undertaken in behalf of the workers ef this city. We work- ers are vitally concerned in the victory o: the farmers. Such a victory will, by preventing the bankruptcy of those who till the soil, advance the interests of all toilers. “We declare that the enemies of the farmers are also the ene- mies of the workers in the city. Ours is common cause, All of us are threatened with mass star- vation and misery as a result of the greed of the bankers, the gigantic trusts and wealthy land- owners. It is in the interests of these parasite exploiters and by their orders that the city, county, state and federal government forces are being employed. “We call upon the striking farmers to stand fast in their determination to win their just demands. We pledge them our every possible support, morally and materially. We will gladly join them in the effort to estab- lish stronger mass picket lines and mass resistance against the brutal attacks of deputized thugs. “Forward in the common fight of all toilers!” In and around Minneapolis and St. Paul, where the farm strike is going on just now, unemployed workers under the leadership of the Unemployed Councils have stormed the market centers, seizing box-cars, storming stockyards and turning loose livestock and main- taining militant picketing together with the striking farmers. At the same time solidarity meetings have been organized by the unemployed, calling for support to the farmers’ Strike against the marketing com- panies and exposing the Holiday leaders who are sabotaging the mass picketing. Tn Beltrami and Clearwater Counties in northern Minnesota, workers and unemployed in the same manner have gone on the Picket lines with the farmers. SOLIDARITY W!TH WORKERS On the other hand, the striking farmers in Iowa repeatedly de- clared that “our strike is not against the workers, but against the market monopolies.” The Ne- braska farmers in a big mass meet- ing declared their solidarity with the workers by stating: “To forestall the action of the middlemen who will tell the workers that the farmers’ strike is the cause of higher prices, in their efforts to cripple our strength by dividing the workers from us, we are resolved to give free food and milk to the unem- ployed and needy of the cities, This relief will be distributed through our own agencies and not through any professionnal refief organization, the officers of which receive any salary whatever” — Numerous other concrete ex- amples could be brought to show the growing solidarity between workers and exploited farmers, who begin to realize that both are be- ing exploited and oppressed by the same enemies—the bankers, trusts, market monopolies and the capi- talist government. It is necessary that workers’ or- ganizations everywhere follow these examples and, while supporting the farmers’ struggles for higher prices, themselves organize mass actions against the high prices to consum- ers, 6 ee 'OMRADE FOSTER, Communist Presidential candidate, in a r cent statement to the press ex- pressing the policy of the Com- munist Party, urged both workers and farmers systematically to pro- mote these solidarity actions. Comrade Foster said: “The trade unions in the pres- ent situation must energetically support the farmers’ movement and their demands for increased prices for farm products. At the same time, we call upon the workers and unemployed to fight for the lowering of retail prices.” Comrade Foster further called upon the unemployed workers to | participate in picket lines with the farmers, and called upon the farm- ers to support the unemployed with donations of unmarketable food- stuffs, instead of allowing them to | be destroyed. It is necessary that workers everywhere shall establish connec- tions with the exploited farmers, not only in those areas where farm- ers’ strikes are in process. These connections can be established by workers’ organizations sending their members on Sunday visits to the country. In arranging these visits, the workers should provide them- selves with literature, especially literature. dealing with the farm- ers’ conditions. The farmers’ mili- tant paper, “The Producers’ News,” published in Plentywood, Montana, can be ordered and distributed among the farmers during these Sunday visits. JOINT HUNGER MARCHES Workers’ organizations should also send delegations to farmers’ meetings and invite farmers in re- turn to send their representatives to visit workers’ meetings. In the fight against hunger and starvation, joint county hunger marches of workers and farmers can become a very effective weapon for securing relief and at the same time cementing solidarity between workers and exploited farmers. By giving their support to the/ farm- ers’ struggles against the market- ing trusts, taxation and mortgage burdens and against the strike- breaking activities of rich farmers, the workers can surely expect in return, both moral and material support, in their struggles, from the farmers. Through these solidarity expres- sions and activities of fraterniza- tion, the workers and farmers can create a powerful united movement | THE F of all the toilers against misery, on Militant Teachers, Students Dismissal of Oakley Johnson and Others Shows Boss Offensive Brought to. Colleges by Crisis 2 By OAKLEY JOHNSON Y recent dismissal from the Eve- ning Session staff of the Col- lege of the City of New York would be of no special consequence to workers: and intellectuals if it had not a definite political signifi- cance. With 15,000,000 people in the United States out of work, in- cluding thousands of teachers and other white collar workers—a gen- eral condition of very high political significance—the routine of firing one or another individual is not worth noticing. But in my case, as in that of Professor Leo Gallagher recently, there were demonstrable ical causes for’ dropping me m the faculty list, even though I had been teaching satisfactorily at this college for two years. IRST STEP The immediate cause was my sponsorship of the Liberal Club the second semester of last year, afier the administrative authorities hed persuaded the previous faculty ady to resign. I, too, was prop- agandized by Dr. Paul H. Linehan in an effort to detach me from the Club. He suggested to me smilingly, on several occasions, that the Lib- eral Club is a ‘wild crowd,” that I ‘didn’t have to act as adviser’ to them, that I hadn't ought to ‘bother myself with them.’ ‘Lue meaning of these maneuvering lies in the fact that the Liberal Club coul! not legally exist, with the right of meeting in the college halls as do other campus clubs, unless a fac- ulty adviser could be secured, When. Dr. Linehan and President Robin- son—to put the actual explanation in a nutshell—found they could not. persuade me to set the Liberal Club adrift, they fired me. As a result, the Liberal Club was denied permission to meet on Oct. 5, the first regular meeting sched- uled for the current term, and the Club with its several hundred sym- pathizers was compelled to gather on the street—which the Club did, at, Amsterdam Ave. and 138th St., with myself and several National Student League and Liberal Club members as speakers. Incidentally, the adviser of the Social Problems Club of C. C. N. Y. (the Day Ses- sion students’ club) has resigned, it is reported “on-pressure of other business,” and as 4 result City Col- lege students, both day and eve- ning, have at one stroke been robbed of the right of free speech. <-, * URING the time I served as ad- viser of the Liberal Club, insist- ing on their right to distribute leaf lets, to get editors of the Daily Worker and other working-class Jeaders as speakers, and to carry on a campaign against student fees, I was continually annoyed by objections and complaints from Dr. Linehan. He disliked the phrasing of the announcements of the Club’s meetings, complained that the Lib- eral Club was “more active than all the other college clubs put to- gether,” and accused the members of the Liberal Club of dishonesty in-the use of their student ques- tionnaire on the issue of tuition fees at a supposedly free college. His antagonism to every assertion of independent student opinion and his rdge at the persistence and courage of the Club members were unmistakable. DR. ROBINSON ORDERED DISMISSAL On top of these facts is the final definite information, conveyed to me orally by Professor A. D, Comp- ton, head of my department, that he had nothing to do with my dis- missal, but that President Robin- son himself had directed that my name be crossed out. In the face of this, and in the face of my suc- cessful twelve years’ teaching in three universities, it is absurd to state, as the college administration does, that my dismissal is due to ‘reduced enrollment’ and the re- turn of two instructors from leaves of absence. The truth is, the en- rollment would have been much greater than the present teaching force could take care of if hun- dreds haq “hot been turned away— in the interest of Mayor McKee's ‘economy’ program at the expense of teachers, students and workers. 'Y sponsorship of the Liberal Club is not the only cause for President Robinson’s displeasure. For several months I have taken part in revolutionary activities which he would stop if he could. I was on the committee which the Protection of the Foreign Born sent to Washington, D. C., to protest against, the Dies Bill and other pro- posed anti-alien laws. I spoke be- fore the House of Representatives Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, and condemned, on the basis of our school -book and educational traditions in favor of political asylum, the entire Doak anti-alien program. starvation and capitalist oppres- sion, Cc, P. SUPPORTS FARM STRUGGLES The Communist Party, vanguard of the working class, has made very clear its position and has de- clared wholshearted support to the farmers’ struggles. This is re- peated again in the statement of Comrade Foster, in which he says: “While supporting the immedi- ate demands brought forward by the farmers themselves, the Com- munist Party invites the farmers to bring forward also demards for the cemplete annulment cf their debts to the banks, annul- ment of mortgages and taxes and to take up the agrarian demands of the Communist Party election platform.” The Communist Party also gives its suport to the Farmers’ National Relief Conference called by the .rank and file farmers’ organiza- Bex, to meet in Washington on c. 7, OAKLEY JOHNSON In reply. to the question, “Are you a Communist?” asked by one of the Congressmen, I stated that at the next election, in common with hundreds of other. college teachers’and students, I was going to vote Communist for the first t'me. This declaration, reported in the World-Telegram and other New York papers, must have come to the surprised attention of City Col+ lege's president. I did not antici- pate, when I opposed Secretary of Labor Doak’s persecution of the foreign born, that within half a year he and Ralph M. Easley would launch an attack on the entire school system of the United States. Yet this reverbiration of the poli- tical revolt in American colleges. is the clear meaning of Doak’s re- cent decree against foreign-born students who work their way thru school, and of Easley’s campaign to use the Doak order in kicking out radical college teachers and stu- dents. My dismissal is an incident in the fascist efforts to suppress every vestige of free speech in Am- erican colleges. oe ASSISTED also, in the John Reed Club, signature campaign among intellectuals in protest against the Dies Bill, I was a member of the delegation which visited Secretary of Labor Doak in Washington, to demand the release of Edith Berk- man, and I investigated and public- ly reported on the Kentucky mine strike and the Detroit-Dearborn massacre activities which did not endear me, certainly, to the Tam- many-controlled capitalist admin- istration of City College. The brazen abuse of the educa- tional system in the interest of cap- italist politics should not be a mat- ter of surprise. The popular illu- sion that the schools are detached from governmental corruption must be dispelled. The schools under capitalism are a capitalist institu- tion, and are a means of perpetuat- ing capitalism by imposing its idea- logy on the children of. workers, and by discouraging all revolution- ary thinking. The capitalist bias of the courts and the police are well understood by most workers and intellectuals, so. that there is no question among us when. we see workers in’ hunger demonstrations clubbed by policemen, or watch the steady attempts of the courts to send nine innocent Negro children to the electric chair: We know that here the face of capitalist jus- tice is in plain view. But when col- leges are involved, we are apt to forget that capitalism is boss among them, too. eat onan § T this time, the crisis sharpen- ing frdm week to week, we see that not only is the school system openly used as a weapon against revolutiona: workers and their sympathizers but that the degener- ation of education itself proceeds at an amazing rate. Every day cuts in teachers’ wages are announced, schools are reduced in force and equipment, a month_or so is cut from the school yeaty departments and even whole schools are closed down, all in the interest of “econ- omy.” The continuation high school, for instance, on 42nd St. near Third Ave., is to be closed to all adults above the age of 17; the Garfield, New Jersey, teachers have not been paid since last April; teachers in Flint, Michigan, receive contracts for one month only, since the schools may have to be closed at any time; Chicago teachers get paid, like miners and share-crop- pers, in “scrip”; thousands of teachers are unemployed. Along with this, students are forced to pay even higher tultion, or are turned away, for “lack.of space” or with a dozen other«such .eX¢uses, “ACADEMIC FREEDOM” In this crisis, along With the dee crease in the extent and quality.of education, comes a increase | in open fascist actions. “Academic freedom,” which *has'-never --been more than an abstract phrase, now becomes frankly a jest. Max Weiss, former student at C.C.N.Y. and now leader of the . Young Communist League, is not allowed to address students at the college The Forum Club of the University of- Pitts- burgh is closed down because it ar- ranges a debate bétween one of the university professors and: ..S¢ott Nearing. The C.C.N.Y. Liberal Chib, robbed of a faculty advisorand forbidden to meet.without one‘ (and every faculty member too terror- ized to accept the post), is.in ¢f- fect arbitrarily. dissol 2d. -The ‘So- cial Problems Club likewise. ~ Dist in college after college th the country. Why this suppression? — In th New York. Times of October 2 the meeting of the International. Uni- versity Conference is announced,-ai- tended by Dr. Nicholas Murray~ But- Jer, Dr. James Rowland other university presidents, to: dis- cuss “The Obligations of the Uni- versities to the Social Order.” “If university presidents are. interested in the “widespread unrest of our time,” as their annountement states, why are they unt allow ‘university students to “discuss the same questions? Even if they cannot meet, as do the presi ents, in the Waldorf-Astoria? Inte! teachers and students will “ees that this grave “conference” i§ in- deed called to carry. out thé“obli- gations” of the universities: the capitalist social order. ; expulsion of Scott Nearing from the teaching fietd =ye0k place early in the World Wer per~ iod. Then—to name only the-most outstanding ¢asés—came the =| missal of John E. trick fron Olivet in 1926, of Sol Auerbael from the University of Pennsyl varia in 1927, of Professor Wesley Maurer from Ohio State Univer- sity in 1928, of Bérnhard J, Stern from the University of We in 1920, and of Professor Adolphus Miller from } State University in 1931. Now wé have not only my own », but the more important instance "of dropping Professor Leo Gallagher from the law’ school of ‘Southwestern Uni versity. Gallagher, acting as an International Labor Defense Attor- ney, defended the five.young people who astounded the Olympic crowd by their. “Mooney protest run” under- the very noses of Vi¢e-President..Curtis and other imperialist _ chieftains gathered there. " ATTACK TEACHERS, \ STUDENTS The Doak-Basley labor, haters, not satisfied with their attacks on the bonus marchers and their per. secution of the ‘foreign-born, back ed by the whole imperialist capital ist regime of Hoover, are’ on th eve of a greatly intensified attack on all proletarian-minded teach- ers and students. What will be the reply of students to this attack-on their rights? What the reply.of teachers, who have for so long been the docile servants of capitalist ex- ploitation and are only now begin= ning to realize their. class identity with wage-workers? : The flocking of intellectual the John Reed Clubs, and the thusiastic response of writers ahd professionals to “Foster and Ford Committee” inyitations, “indicate the road that students ang .teach- ers should follow. Not the-road-of quiet. submission, however: ‘digni- fied,” according to oily tors, submission is suppased to be, Fellow teachers! You who are supposed to teach young men and women, do not be yourselves mis- led! If you see students denied the. right of free expréssion, stand up for them. The present is no time for cowardice, You may spoil your chances for promotion (whi¢h. ever more remote for all teaser. you may lose your jobs, which ruthlessly being eliminated ™ by th» capitalist rulers—but have courage, and show it. we ae ine gon struggle and vast anges Show that teachers, too, : members of the revolutionary guard! Se eee. Letters from On the Dismissal of Prof. Leo Gallagher Los Angeles, Calif. Editor, the Daily Worker, Dear Comrade: In the editorial on the dismissal of Oakley Johnson from the teach- ing staff of City College of New York, cases of other teachers’ dis- missals were told, but no mention was made of the case of Leo Gal- lagher, attorney for the Interna- tional Labor Defense, who was dis- missed in September from the law | faculty of Southwestern University, Los Los Angeles; 4 after 10 years’ service, and “ Denote? Our Readers because of his militant defense of workers. The Students’ League has* been READ THIS ITEM PROM THE WALL St. souniagr From the Kiplinger Wash Washington Letter, circulated vately to a limited number of business executives: “The grapevine gossip (in Washington) is that it (the will be manipulated upward. Certainly wish and it is being communicated to Wall Street None of the pools are ‘ditected’ from Washington, basis for assuming that officials are ‘In on them officialdom and standing between Washington prefers to elect Hoover.” mt) this is the W: and there Soars fy be ioe ', but there is and Wall St, and gee |